When investigators for Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro issued their final report on February 25, they concluded that the minor discrepancies between the recollections of Rick Massey and Hillary Clinton weren't worth quibbling over. Moreover, "the purported recollections of Jim McDougal are inconsistent with those of the others and upon analysis make little sense." Contrary to McDougal's story, the retainer agreement didn't begin until work on the preferred stock issue started -- almost a year after the purported "jogging" incident. "Most significantly," the report concluded, "the alleged economic motivation makes no sense ... There is no evidence that the Clintons ever received anything like $2,000 a month from this engagement, and every reason to believe that they never received more than a trivial sum of money ... Even if all the retainer had been earned in fees, Mrs. Clinton's share would have been less than $20 a month."

On the evening of Massey's testimony, "Nightline" aired key portions that made its real import clear. This time Ted Koppel made a point of emphasizing that few, if any, of Senator D'Amato's dire predictions had turned out to be accurate. On Saturday, January 13, the New York Times ran an "Editor's Note" stipulating that Stephen Labaton's story on Massey's appearance "should have included testimony that seemed to support" Hillary Clinton -- a halting clarification, but a clarification all the same.

The manifest failure of the monthlong assault on Hillary Clinton to yield evidence of wrongdoing was not ignored everywhere. New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis became the first important voice at his newspaper to break ranks. "Three years and innumerable investigations later," he wrote on January 15, "Mrs. Clinton has not been shown to have done anything wrong in Whitewater. One charge after another has evaporated."

Lewis compared D'Amato's performance to that of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy during the anti-Communist witch-hunts of the fifties. But Lewis noted one major difference. "On Whitewater, the press too often seems an eager accomplice of the accusers ... Some of the coverage of Whitewater reads as if the reporters or editors were committed to finding something wrong -- as if they had an investment in the story."

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